Winter Be My Witness
by TenyumeKasumi
Summary: Winter. A time that has seen many unseen sides of Shepard in her youth - hardship, cruelty, struggle, even death. And now, years later, it is present once again to witness the side of her that is just beginning to emerge. Based on Earthborn FemShep.
1. Chapter 1

Huff.

A stream of warm, white cloud billows into the air. It vanishes as it floats up and cools into nothingness.

Pufffff.

A more drawn out exhale produces a longer stream of white, flowing continuously like the ancient steam engines of centuries past.

Shepard watches in fascination as her breath turns into visible vapour in the cold air, creates little bursts of mists by blowing on empty air and giggling like a little girl as they cloud her vision. Soft white fluff blankets the ground everywhere as far as the eye could see. The bare branches of bald trees are heavy with it. A sense of stillness hangs about the wintry air. It has been a long while since Shepard has seen snow. In fact, the last time was –

The smile slips from her face; her expression darkening, shadows come over her eyes as she remembers. Earth. The last time she had seen snow had been back on Earth – back when she was an orphan girl in a rowdy gang of misfits surviving off the scantiest of supplies on the dingy streets.

Wintertime had been a curse back then, the harshest and most unforgiving time of the year. If you were too weak or starved during the fall season, you would be expected to die before Christmas. Simple as that. Fights were waged with other gangs for food and shelter. The dry corner of a dirty alleyway. Any spare clothing found discarded by a trash site – which was as good as gold. Caution was needed – if you suffered an injury during a scuffle or any injury that rendered you unable to fight really, you were in for a hard time. If you got an infection or broken bones during a fight then – well, good luck.

As a result, winter was the time the Reds lost most of its members and emerged in the spring with only a handful of survivors, though they were usually very much the worse for wear. Among that handful would always be present the same few individuals who made it, no matter how tough the conditions had been, year after year. Shepard was one of them.

She remembered the frigid cold, which bit at her skin and stole every ounce of warmth and the freezing wind that blew right through her too few clothes and chilled her to the very marrow of her bones. Nights spent pressing up against once another for body heat, air blowing from between chattering teeth to warm numb fingers. The lucky ones would have torn, aged loafers or thin, tattered slippers to protect their feet - some went barefoot. A friend might share one side of their footwear with them, though.

She remembered dark days when the hours were spent looking for any unwary passer-by to pickpocket for a few credits or a distracted shopkeeper to loot a few morsels from. People would curse and swear and scream their heads off at them over losing a credit or three or a loaf of stale bread. And they did all this while they hung on to their rich winter finery and furs and their expensive Christmas shopping, buying presents for the dozens of family members and friends at home. Not one spared a thought for them, the filthy strays who roamed the cold, grubby streets looking a scrap of discarded food or a place to sleep while they carried on with their comfortable, luxurious lives.

She remembered watching from the shadows of a grimy alleyway as a patrol officer dragged little, screaming Jared after a failed thievery attempt into a police shuttle and taking him away. Sometimes one of their own would be caught and they were hauled off kicking and screaming to the dreaded and much-hated orphanage. Granted, you were given three meals a day and a roof over your head, but that imprisonment and degradation was not worth their freedom – many would rather die on the streets, the only place they had known.

She remembered, when night began to fall, scuffles with other kids from other gangs for territorial rights – clenched fists and drawn switch-blades split the air and pants of exertion manifesting in clouds of white before their faces. She remembered one particularly vicious fight one winter with a rival gang – the Falcons – when she had taken on a boy twice her size while her fellows found opponents of their own. The boy refused to go down, so she had drawn her knife and slashed. The Falcons were forced to sleep in the bitter cold that night, the boy she had fought with missing one eye. She never saw him again after that and could only assume the obvious.

She remembered long nights when the temperature dropped further and they would all huddle together to ward off the unnerving cold. The younger, littler ones usually kept closer to the centre of the group with the elder, more resilient ones towards the fringes to watch for any cut-throat rival gangs that might come and spring them a surprise in their sleep. When morning would finally come, there was a chance it would bring the realisation that one or more of them was not moving and not breathing. She remembered once, going to sleep next to a girl the same age as her – twelve that year – whose name was Madeline. Shepard woke up the next day beside a cold, unyielding body – frozen to death during the night

Life on the streets during winter boiled down to this: if the cold didn't get you, the fights would. If the fights didn't get you, the hunger would. If hunger didn't get you, the authorities would.

Survive or die. A hard and fast rule of the streets.

Shepard let out a heavy sigh, the gush of warm air turning into a massive vapour cloud that enveloped her head as the wind began to blow gently against her face. Her fringe brushes her forehead as her eyes turn to the heavens, cheeks pink from the cold. Times were hard then and the future was dark, especially for a homeless orphan on Earth. Half the time when Shepard woke up to a new day, she wondered if she would still be alive by the end of it.

"Shepard?"

The calling of her name. The crunch of a heavy boot on snow. Shepard shook her head, clearing her mind and turning her thoughts away from those days – they never did her any good.

Instead she reminded herself to focus on what was with her in the here and now, in the present. Looking over her shoulder, she smiled up at a large turian with blue clan markings on his avian face and a battered-looking set of armour that looked like it had seen better days.

"Hey Garrus. Missed me already?"

He gave her the turian equivalent of a smirk – a slight opening of the jaw and a slight flare of the mandibles – as he came closer to stand next to her. "Hardly. I think the team and I have had enough of your stunts during missions without having to put up with them while off-duty."

Shepard returned the smirk. "Says the guy who braved the ice and snow to find his commanding officer in the middle of nowhere on a winter planet. I thought turians didn't like the cold?"

"Says a lot about my courage, doesn't it?" says Garrus in a mock-bragging tone. "Actually, I came to tell you that we'll still be here for a while longer – the problem with the Normandy's communication systems was more complicated than expected. Adams and Tali are doing the best they can but looks like we'll still be stuck here for some time while they fix it."

Shepard could do no more than shrug her shoulders in assent before he continued, "And I… came to see if you were all right, Shepard."

That took her off-guard. "Huh?"

"You… seem a little out of sorts. Is something bothering you?"

"I – " Shepard began, not knowing what to say. He must have noticed her dark brooding from a moment ago. Her shoulders sagged slightly as she seemed to deflate and returned her gaze straight ahead at a cluster of trees. "Nothing. It's nothing." God damn it, why did she have no problem lying to bureaucratic dipshits but sounded like an eight-year-old with their hand caught in the cookie jar when around her crew?

"Doesn't sound like nothing to me," Garrus retorted. "Didn't look like it either."

"I... don't really want to talk about it. " And she was even worse around Garrus specifically. It wasn't as if he was interrogating her, but she sometimes thought that he still had that C-Sec officer I-know-you're-not-telling-me-something-and-you-better-do-it-now aura about him.

Shepard started when she felt a touch on her arm. His flanged voice dropped a few octaves. "Shepard, you know you can tell me anything, right?"

"But I don't – " She automatically tensed but began to relax in spite of herself as he carefully curled his talons around her forearm so that the points didn't touch her skin. His touch was gentle, his voice comforting and his presence warm in the frigid cold. He was her comrade, her companion, her friend. And before she knew what was happening, the words were spilling forth from her unimpeded.

"It's just… I was remembering the last time I had contact with snow. That was more than ten years ago, on Earth when I was still a street orphan and not old enough to be an Alliance recruit yet. Heh." Shepard turned her eyes skywards again, at the same time reaching out with her other hand to lay it over his three-fingered one on her arm. It should have felt weird, it later occurred to her, except it didn't.

"I was in a gang that time, The Reds – I guess you know that. Remember Finch? The braggart who approached us outside Chora's Den? Wanted me to bust out another Reds member, the blockhead. Anyway, winter was the toughest time for us street kids. No food, no shelter – just cold and each other. Lots of us died during winter." She closed her hand over his to feel his reassuring solidness, an anchor to reality. "We fought with other gangs for whatever resources we can get our hands on – sometimes to the death if everyone was being particularly stubborn. Which we usually were, we had to be. You know, survival of the fittest and all that." God, she didn't even know what she was saying any more. It was like her mouth had taken on a mind of its own. But he just stood there silently and listened intently, eyes wide but never leaving her face even though she was not looking at him.

"I think that was when I had my first kill, indirectly. One winter my gang and another gang were having a scuffe and I took out a guy's right eye with a rusty switch-blade – nicked it from an old lady in an antique store, God knows why she had it – and that put him out of the fight. Thing is, it's already hard enough to survive with both your eyes let alone only one. Last time I ever saw him. He could have bled to death during the night or someone else might have finished him off while he was handicapped.

"And then there was this nine-year-old kid with really bright green eyes, he was one of our youngest. He usually got the easier thieving jobs that called for light fingers and fast legs. He could really run, I can tell you that. Best pickpocket we had. But one morning he tried to get a bit too smart and climbed up on to a roof to escape the bakery shop owner – made off with his entire wallet, the little blighter – but slipped on the ice and fell. Twisted his ankle. Wasn't so fast after that." Shepard let out a heavy breath, producing another miniature white cloud.

"Got caught and hauled off to the orphanage. You won't die there like you might on the streets at least, but it's a different kind of hell. You either stay in there until you're old enough that they can kick you back out on your ass anyway or you get adopted and thrown from one foster home to another like a toy. So we knew Jared was safe, but we didn't know if he was okay. Never saw him again either."

Garrus had moved to stand closer to her, so close that they could feel each other's body heat and have the other's breath-cloud-vapour blow in their faces. But neither of them was really bothered.

"Knew a girl named Madeline, same age as me. We got along okay – she was my usual scouting partner. We liked to target this guy selling ship models – I'd cause a big enough commotion while she made off with his creds. Lighting up a firework or two in his shop usually did the trick. Even stole a model from him once, I think. One night - our gang didn't fight so well that night so we ended up sleeping right next to the trash dumps - we just slept beside each other like we sometimes do and I woke up the next morning to find her dead. Guess she wasn't warm enough. Finch became my partner after that. Never was as good as Madeline, too clumsy.

"On most years there was an off chance one of us would catch pneumonia. Once you do, it's pretty much a ticket to a slow death. We'd have no medical supplies nor the creds to get them some so the best we could do was look after them until they died. It's how we lost Ryan one year. He was like our big brother, the one we would always look up to. We did whatever we could; gave him the best shelter, brought him food, but even then he still barked at us to forget about him and look out for ourselves. Not that we listened. But he didn't really listen to us pleading for him to stay either so I guess we're even. That made us grow up a little faster though, I think.

"And if we're unlucky, we'd get into shuttle accidents too. Well, accidents happen all year-round but traffic is particularly high in December – you know, Christmas and New Year and all. Humans are pretty big on those. Anyway, there was this one time; this sweet girl, Ling – really clever one, she was – was just walking down a main pedestrian road. She wasn't even doing anything wrong – okay, maybe looking out for potential targets but that's beside the point – when this asshole driver drunk with too much asari wine was driving his shuttle too low along the ground. And too fast. She couldn't react in time. I saw the authorities doing the clean-up later. Some of her limbs had been stripped off her body and part of her was burnt from the thrusters. Not pleasant."

When had her voice began to shake?

"And – and then there was – "

She was abruptly cut off by Garrus crushing her into a sudden bear hug – or as close to a bear hug as a turian could give, what with their awkward angles and planes and spurs. And she, Commander Shepard, saviour of the galaxy and first human Spectre, found herself bawling her eyes out into her best friend's shoulder.

* * *

**A/N: Well, Happy New Year, everyone!**

**I initially planned this to be a one-shot, but it looks like it's getting a bit out of hand (as all my fics seem to get) so a two-shot would seems more appropriate, no? xD At first I retardedly wrote this with the ME2 timeline in mind so instead of Adams and Tali fixing the communications system, it was LEGION and Tali fixing up EDI's comms. Then I realised that in ME1, Shep would have been on Noveria which has... snow. So I amended it to have the timeline set somehwere in ME1. Could be in Noveria or some other winter planet now. Crisis averted. xD**

**This was written with an Earthborn FemShep in mind. I did some very, very light skimming of the hardships faced by street children when out of juice while writing this and came across something in Wikipedia about how, in really extreme cases, street kids were gunned down by vigilante groups. I was thinking of incorporating that but decided not to in the end for multiple reasons.**

**Okay now, to bring the subject away from such dark stuff, I would say the next and concluding chapter should come in two weeks max (beware: I am a procrastinator). Until it comes, please do leave a review! It would make this author so, so happy! Did you know, leaving even two or three words is enough to brighten up a writer's day? :D**

**See ya!**

**- Kasumi.**

**P.S.: My brother gave me a glitter lamp as a belated Christmas present today! Basically it's a lava lamp except instead of lava, there's glitter - the kind with large flakes. It's reddish orange. I've always wanted one and now I have one! Though I didn't know about this glitter variant of the lava lamp. Heh, it's far more better glitter than what Bella Swan can ever hope to have... if you know what I mean. ;D**

**-prepares curbstomp shield from the Twihards-**

**5/1/2012: Made some adjustments. Added a few sentences to the body.**

**4/1/2013: Corrected some typo errors. Thanks to Naishu for bringing my attention to them!**

**16/1/2013: Made more minor correctments and adjustments. It was brought to my attention that some may not recognise that the word 'fringe' is synonymous with 'bangs'. Yup, so if you didn't already know, they both refer to the front part of our hair that's always in our eyes. xD**


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard isn't sure how long she cries, using Garrus as both an emotional and physical support. She just cries and cries as she hasn't for a long time, the tears spilling from her eyes and leaving freezing tracks as they run down her cheeks and on Garrus' equally freezing armour. Her breath is coming in desperate, raspy gulps in between ragged sobs but she doesn't care. Doesn't give a damn. He doesn't seem bothered either, just keeps his alien but strangely inviting arms around her and rests his head on top of hers, mandibles brushing her hair as they quiver against her scalp.

Finally, her tears slow and she regains control of her breathing again. Shepard composes herself and tries to gather her wits together. "I-I'm sorry you had to see that, Garrus," she says, her voice still somewhat shaky. "I really shouldn't have – "she made to pull out of his embrace.

He didn't relent his grip however, bowing his head to meet her gaze when she looks up at his questioningly – confused and cautious. He tightens his hold assuringly in response, just enough to tug her a little closer but lax enough for her to break out of his embrace if she wanted to. She doesn't, instead settling back against him and resting her cheek against his ice-cold armour. She found that she didn't quite want to leave either.

"I'm sorry."

"Shepard, you have nothing to be sorry for." Garrus responds. Shepard shakes her head.

"No, that was unprofessional." she says harshly, clenching her fists so her nails bite into the flesh of her palm. "I should have more control of myself. I shouldn't give in to emotion so easily – "

"Emotions are proof that we are alive, Shepard."

She almost scoffs at the irony of him being the one to tell her that. "But I'm your commanding officer, there are certain things I must and must not do – "

"Shepard – listen to me." the words are earnest, almost pleading. They make her pause mid-sentence and look back up to meet his piercing gaze. "I came here not to speak as a subordinate to his commanding officer, but as someone to a dear friend. Remember that you aren't alone Shepard, ever."

"I – " Shepard tries, not really knowing what to say. It felt… strange. To have someone trying to scale the wall she had built up around herself from the day she had joined the Alliance. When she had left the streets and enlisted to get offworld with the Alliance Navy, she thought she was starting anew – burying that stray, orphaned girl under weeks of training and years of hardening herself. And no one could deny she had come far; N7 soldier for the Alliance, commanding officer of her own ship, an elite Spectre for the Citadel's Council – Shepard belatedly realised that all this while, that stray, orphaned girl with all of her sadness and hatred at the unjustness of the world still resided within her.

"Thank you, Garrus. I can't tell you enough how… how much that means to me." Shepard finally manages, choking a little over the words as she fights to keep it together. "It's just, it – it happened so long ago and I didn't think it would – Oh hell," she curses, thumping her head lightly against Garrus' chest plate. "I'm hopeless."

The armour vibrates slightly against her forehead when chuckles rumble through his chest and out past flayed mandibles. "Hardly. If you really were, I doubted we would have made it out of Therum alive."

Shepard allowed herself a smirk, a bit of her old swagger returning. "Heh. It was a pretty close one, though. T'Soni wasn't much of a runner."

They share a moment of vague amusement at the expense of the asari researcher. Then Shepard pulls away and takes a step back. Garrus lets her and his arms fall to his sides. Now with a respectable distance between them, they maintain eye contact. The silence is not awkward but strangely comforting, companionable. Though Shepard did feel colder now with the absence of his arms around her.

"Say, I did come looking for you with a question in mind…"

Shepard quirks an eyebrow at him, the corner of her mouth tilting upward slightly as he wrings his hands together – or the turian equivalent of the action anyway, with talons clicking against each other. She was definitely feeling better now – watching him squirm was just too fun. "All right, shoot."

"Isn't there… anything you want to do? To ease tension, I mean." Shepard's jaw was half a second away from dropping to the ground and the blood just beginning to rush to her cheeks when he adds, "Joker did tell me that you humans have certain customs around snow. Turians… we don't like the cold. So we don't know much about stuff like that. I was thinking you might… enjoy observing whatever these 'customs' of yours are while we have time. And show me a few things while you're at it. Are you okay, Shepard? Your face, it's red all of a sudden."

"O-Oh – it's nothing! Just a natural reaction to the cold, it making my cheeks flushed. But yeah. Yeah, that sounds great." stammered Shepard, inwardly berating herself and feeling like a teenage girl. 'Stop thinking inappropriate things! That's not what he meant!'

"Oh. Okay. That's interesting." Garrus obliviously replies with the light of genuine curiosity in his startlingly blue eyes. He does have really nice eyes, Shepard realises, as she tries to look into their crystalline blue without giving herself away.

"So, what sort of snow customs do humans practice?"

"Oh, well…" Shepard trails off, "what did Joker tell you?"

His brow-plates, which Shepard took for eyebrows, lift and mandibles move outward and away from his face. She learnt this was turian facial expression for baffled amusement. "That you humans throw fistfuls of snow at each other and try not to get hit – which sounds like a fire fight but without the guns and blood. And that you lie down on your backs and swing your arms and legs to create an image of a celestial being on the ground. And some… other stuff. It was all beyond me."

Shepard stifles a laugh – she never realised how weird outdoor winter activities must seem to someone who belonged to race that had never seen snow on their home planet. Then an idea came to her, slowly at first but seeming to have more and more potential the longer she turned it over in her mind, considering it.

"Say Garrus, have you ever heard of sledding?"

"Have I – what? Sledding?"

"Thought not." said Shepard, a wicked smirk splitting her face as she grabbed his hand, turned around and made towards the trees; deeper into the winter wood, half-dragging him behind her when he stumbled from the unexpected motion.

"Shepard, what – "

"Hang on a minute and I'll show you. Give me a hand and keep an eye out, okay?"

"Keep an eye out for what?"

"A wooden log or thick bark or something like that."

"But why would you want those things?"

"Oh, you'll see." she replied. He could hear the smirk in her voice.

He just shakes his head behind her back, bemused. Humans were such strange creatures sometimes. Well, at least she looks better now, thought Garrus, as he fixes his gaze on her back while she chugs determinedly along, through the shin-deep snow and climbing up an inclined slope. That old, haunted look is gone from her face and the dark aura from before had dissipated. She's smiling now, and she's still holding on to his hand.

Strangely, ironically, it didn't feel weird; her hand in his. Her many, willowy fingers locked with his three stout ones, talons curled so the inside curves rested on the back of her hand and the tips didn't pierce her skin. Skin that felt like soft down against the thick, scaly hide of his palms. The physical differences between them were so vast, they encompassed an entire ocean filled with the misunderstandings between their species. But their interlocked hands felt… natural. Like coming home to a familiar couch and welcoming halls. Her hand fit with his like a missing piece of jigsaw puzzle. And Garrus didn't think the feeling was unpleasant at all.

They continue on, with Shepard yanking him impatiently behind her. The hill they were climbing sloped steeper and soon they were both breathing heavily and stumbling in the knee-deep snow. Still, she keeps pulling him forward. He wonders why they had to travel up a hill looking for bits of wood, why they needed any in the first place and when Shepard was going to sto –

"Ah!"

Garrus snaps up his head at her triumphant yell, nearly tangling his fringe with a snow-capped clump of low-hanging branches. Her strides suddenly grow more purposeful, more excited. If he didn't have a heavier body mass, she probably would have dragged him under the snow from the abrupt change in direction and increase in speed. He almost ploughs right into her when she comes to a sudden stop, just managing to catch himself in time.

"Looks like we've managed to find a good one, good."

Garrus follows her gaze to find… a log of wood. Highly unremarkable, a dozen others probably lay around a one mile radius. What was once the trunk of a grand old pine tree was now a cylindrical block of wood, its branches long dead or broken off by wild animals. It had broken off near the top, suggesting that the tree had been felled then left there – though he couldn't tell if that was by the forces of nature or some other unnatural interference. The broken-off portion was roughly three metres long and two feet wide. The inside and a vertical cross-section had rotted away, the remains resembling a long wooden trough for holding water. Gnarled, chipped bark was peeling off at places and powdered snow was packed into its crevices. It was this particular log of wood that Shepard was appraising.

"So, what do you think?"

"… It's a dead tree trunk, Shepard. What am I supposed to think? Th- What are you doing?"

Shepard bent over the log, breaking off any remaining branches and brushing off excess snow. "Making it more comfortable to sit on. Help me out here."

"Why – "

"Are you helping me or not?"

Garrus lets out a dramatic sigh that whistles past his teeth and pitches his mandibles forward. There was no getting an answer out of her while she was so preoccupied with something. Striding over to the other side of the broken tree trunk, he aids her efforts in stripping it bare.

Soon enough, the job is done and a mostly-smooth, hollow, half-rotted tree trunk lay before them. Next, she got him to drag it out of the cover of the trees. Now, Garrus finds himself puffing a little after her, with one end of the hollow tree trunk hoisted on his shoulder and the other dragging along the ground as Shepard ploughs through the snow in front of him, travelling along the side of the hill.

"Shepard," he wheezes, his shoulder was starting to burn now. "Just where- "

"All right, this looks like a good spot."

* * *

**A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay! D:**

**Well, here's the second chapter and nope - it's not over yet, there's still one more part to go. It's all written out but in need of serious editing so it really _will_ be out soon this time. Yeah, I did say this would be the last chapter but it was getting a bit lengthy and so it made more sense to split it again. xD And to think this was supposed to be a one-shot at first...**

**Question: how do you prefer your fics? One long post or broken into multiple parts?**

**Hope to see you soon!**

**-Kasumi**


	3. Chapter 3

They had come to stop at an open area near the top of their hill, the ground covered in snow. Below them the slope angled downwards at a gentle angle. A narrow, winding strip of land stretching from their position to the foot of the hill – which Garrus now realises is actually quite far below – was more or less clear of obstruction with trees and winter undergrowth pressing in on either side.

"Okay, put it down here."

Even as Garrus sets down the hollowed out log and aligns it so it points directly toward the narrow path as per her instructions, he begins to be aware of a growing sense of dread in the pit of his stomach, like a sacrificial animal heading for slaughter. He turns to her; she's standing a few feet away and staring into the distant horizon as if she could see something there and the good humour fades a little from her eyes. Garrus rumbles in renewed worry.

"Shepard, – "

"You know, we used to do this a lot when I was a kid. Sledding, I mean. About the only kind of entertainment we had during winter season." Shepard tells him suddenly, her voice taking on that sad, melancholic tone again.

Garrus falls silent, waiting for her to continue. And she does, "The other kids with homes and parents had nice, proper sleds. But we didn't, so we had to improvise." Her gaze is directed at the piece of tree trunk but he knows she's not really looking at it – her eyes are glazed over and distant, as if seeing something far, far away.

"On good days when we didn't need food right away and it wasn't too cold in the afternoon, we'd look for pieces of tree bark usually, or maybe even tarp or something. Or go to into town and steal some trash can lids. Or if we were feeling really daring, two of us would sneak into a café or something and nick a couple of serving trays – we didn't do that often. Those were difficult to get and it's even worse if we get caught, but serving trays were the best."

A ghost of a smile appears on her lips now, barely there. "There was a small hill in the woods near the lake – looks a lot like this one, actually, but not so steep. We'd spend all day there if we could. The other kids laughed at us but it somehow felt more fun if we didn't use normal sleds. We were rebels after all. Manufactured sleds were too mainstream.

"It was Ryan who taught us how to sled – he was a real pro at it. Kazuma was horrible though – never could make one trip down without face planting into something. There was once he collided squarely with a tree trunk and hit his head – the sound was so loud, we thought he was dead for sure. But he just got right back up and tried to kick the tree for being in his way." A snort escapes Shepard's throat at the memory. "Probably had a concussion though, couldn't walk straight for next couple of days. We had to help him get food and everything, but he got better. He was older than me. Didn't want to enlist in the Alliance so he stayed on Earth. I wonder what happened to him… to everyone…"

She bows her head in silence, thoughts heavy again. Garrus feels something flicker within him at the sight. He decides that he doesn't like seeing her so upset; trying to hide her distress from the world and pretend everything was okay when it wasn't. She deserved better than that. He remembers the small, nostalgic smile she had a few moments ago – and wonders how few of her memories could be considered relatively happy amidst the other harder, harsher ones. Too few, he knows.

Wanting to help her somehow but not knowing how, he hesitatingly brushes her hand with the back of a talon. She starts as if plucked from deep thought, but doesn't pull away. Shepard looks up at him – relief rushes through his veins as he sees that the faraway look in her eyes is gone – before shaking her head as if to clear her mind. "Sorry, slipped for a moment there. I- "

"Shepard, no apologies needed; remember?" Garrus reminds her gently with a slight jab in an attempt to draw her thoughts away from such things again.

She pauses then returns the smile. "Hm, okay. Yeah, I can live with that, I guess. For now."

Then the conspiratorial look is back on her face as she trudges toward the tree trunk.

"Well, looks like we're all set. Get in."

"What?" He did not just hear that. Did she just tell him to sit on a rotted tree trunk?

"You're bigger. It'll be easier for both of us to fit if you go in first."

Despite his brain screaming at him that he was a lunatic for doing this and everything looked like a setup for a disaster and that he should just turn and run; he lowers himself into the hollow trunk. He has to bend his legs at an angle, which made for some awkward positioning because of his leg spurs, and it was a tight fit but somehow he managed to get all of his bulk to fit inside.

"All right, Shepard, are you going to tell me- "

"Budge up a bit, will you?" Shepard says, ignoring him as she too settles in the hollowed log – right between his legs, with her back to him.

"Shep- !"

"Okay, here's what you need to know." Shepard's tone is business-like all of a sudden and Garrus would have thought the abrupt change in tone as funny if it wasn't for the rising panic in his throat at the overall situation.

"Shepard, wait. Just what are we- "

"Once we start moving, don't stick any limbs out and you should be fine; lessens the risk of injury." she informs him, tucking her own legs in more securely. "So no waving arms or sticking heads sideways or dangling feet outside unless you're ready for some pain and broken bones."

"I don't- "

"If we need to avoid an obstacle, just lean hard in the direction I tell you and it should go that way. But don't not too hard or it might flip over and we'd be the ones doing face plants." She stuck her hands toward the sides and was starting to manoeuvre the log forward, the bottom of it sliding over the soft snow.

"This isn't- "

"Well, that's about it. Hang on tight."

"Shepard!"

With a grunt of effort and another mighty shove, Shepard sent their tree trunk sailing over some invisible threshold and pointing downward towards the bottom of the hill. And two things flash through Garrus' mind; they are suddenly plummeting down the hillside and smashing through the underbrush and second; they were gaining speed. Fast.

Garrus felt his stomach get left behind somewhere at the hilltop as they sped down the slope like a shot form a gun, zipping past other fallen logs of wood and missing trees by mere centimetres and leaving a stream of white spray in their wake. A smooth face of rock jutted from the surface and the trunk collided against it with a dull thunk, sending them airborne for a few milliseconds before they came crashing back down on the ice slope and going faster than ever.

The already frigid wind lashed mercilessly at his face and hide, feeling like he was being fired at with cryo rounds wherever his armour didn't cover him. Armour which the wind thwarted, blasting through the cracks of seams and seals to assault his body inside; making him shiver despite the internal heating. It filled his ears with a dull roar, drowning out almost all other sounds.

He instinctively gripped the sides of the trunk's cavity, his numb talons cracking and breaking the old wood a little form the force he was exerting. The cold wind was drying his eyes and making them water, but he couldn't take his eyes off the path. Spirits, what if they crashed into a tree and suffered serious injury?! Did humans think this was a game? They had to be the most irrational, thick-headed, bunch of –

"Hard left! Left!"

Garrus almost let out an unmanly squeak when he noticed the living tree standing right in their trajectory, rapidly becoming bigger and bigger with each passing second as they got closer to colliding with it.

Imitating Shepard's movements, he threw his weight portside as much as he dared without falling off the speeding wooden trunk. As it was, the side of the trunk grazed the tree – taking a good-sized chunk of grizzled bark and wood chips with it as they shot past.

She's laughing now – her gales of exhilarated laughter and whoops of delight echoing across the valley, the sound startling the winter birds and sending them flying from their trees. Even through his own shock and terror, he is glad for her vastly improved spirits. But only a little – it was her fault they were speeding down a snow-covered hill full of hazards to crash into at neck-breaking speeds sitting on nothing but a piece of a dead tree.

Eventually, Garrus notes the levelling of the ground and their steady deceleration – they were reaching the foot of the hill. And hopefully the end of this hellish ride.

It suddenly occurs to Garrus that he doesn't quite know how – or even if! – they'll stop. He tries to even out his breathing and not panic. Okay, maybe this isn't so bad after all. Maybe they would just keep sliding until they slowed to a nice, smooth, gentle halt and there would be no need for broken bones or anything that would result in trips to the medbay or any body bags –

"Incoming!"

Garrus barely has time to comprehend the warning before his head is jolted back violently, nearly biting off his tongue; his entire body absorbed the shock of impact as their ride slammed into a slab of rock partially buried in the snow. The trunk splits and cracks a little at the head from the frontal impact, pieces of bark and wooden splinters flying – and the next thing he knows, they're flying too.

Their momentary suspension in the air seemed to temporarily grant him unnaturally superior power over his sensory receptors and Garrus finds himself hyper-aware of their situation. They are soaring several feet above the snow-packed ground, hanging on to a bit of wood for dear life and Shepard is shrieking, though not in a bad way – he realises he'd never heard his commander make that noise before – come to think of it, he never heard her laugh like she had done before either – it's a nice sound, he wishes she would laugh like that more and – Spirits, he's falling off, they're both falling off and the ground is getting closer –

The momentum flips the trunk, throwing both turian and human into the air like a wild rodeo horse would fling off a cowboy. Garrus, having denser mass and bulkier armour, is the first to land in the snow – face-first. Cold, white powder flies everywhere and he lets out a muffled cry when his face is submerged into a bed of the stuff. The snow is all over him; he was half-buried in it – stuck in his cowl and mandibles, packed into his fringe, the crevices between his plates and the seams and joints in his armour. His ears are ringing when he pushes himself up so he can shake his head and fringe free of snow. But before he can pick himself up, an unexpected downward force strikes his back driving him back into the ground and he tastes dissolving, freezing water in his mouth and on his tongue.

His yell is muffled by the faceful of snow and a cry from Shepard – right above him. Their armour clanging and resonating noisily in the silence of the wintry landscape. Garrus is choking on snow, flailing his limbs and thrashing his head in pain; Shepard had landed right across his lower back, where his waist was the most slender and sensitive.

At the moment, he sees nothing but stars and just focuses on to convincing himself that his spine isn't broken and that he wouldn't be paralysed for life and figures that just lying there on the freezing ground is the best place to do that for now.. He doesn't notice the excruciating weight on his back abruptly vanishing and Shepard suddenly kneeling by his head and trying to turning him over on his back.

"Oh my God, oh my absolute GOD! I'm so, so sorry, Garrus! I didn't mean to – Garrus! Are you okay?! Say something!"

Garrus groaned, tilting his head a little to look up at her anxious face hovering over his. The sun was right above them, eclipsed by her head from his vantage point so it looked like Shepard had a glowing nebula around her head and shoulders with dramatic shadows cast upon her visage and contouring her definitely alien, human face. He vaguely recalls a former colleague's description of angels – celestial beings that humans believed guided lost souls, did good deeds and were thought to possess remarkable beauty. Spirits, he had no idea what they looked like, but he was willing to bet Shepard sure looked like one now.

Remembering his earlier encounter with Joker when the pilot had rattled off on human snow customs, Garrus murmurs to her, still in a daze, "… You… look like a snow angel…"

Or at least, that's he intended to say. It came out all garbled and slurred and probably lost its meaning since all Shepard did was give a wide-eyed pause then laugh as relief washed across her face. Then again, if it makes her laugh that pretty laugh, then he supposes it'll do.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Garrus – but you're not dead yet." she grins when she's recovered from her bout of laughter, cheeks bright red. "Damn it, you had me worried for a second there. Think you can stand up?"

"Yeah, I should be good." Garrus mumbles, taking her offering hand and pulling himself back to his feet. He staggers a little and shakes his head vigorously, ridding his fringe and mandibles of snow. Spirits, that was one hell of a death ride. He fervently hopes he won't have to do it again any time soon – or for the rest of his life, if at all possible. This is why turians were never meant for the cold.

"Okay, once you think you're good to go, I need your help hauling this thing back up."

Garrus, brushing away yet more snow from his armour, freezes in mid-action. Brow plates up, eyes wide and mandibles slack. "Er… why?"

Shepard looks at him as if he had spontaneously grown a second head and was having a conversation with it. "We're going for round two of course. No way are we getting back to the Normandy without doing that another five times!"

Garrus felt his heart drop to his stomach. Oh no, not this again. He doesn't think his heart can handle another trip through those woods.

But he looks at Shepard's expectant smile, her playful eyes and flushed, red cheeks and hair in an untamed, wispy mess – the sight of it so rare that it was a treasure in of itself. He doubts anybody has ever seen this side of her in years, if ever at all. The side of her who was an individualistic human, not the Alliance commander. The side of the wild, orphan girl of Earth's streets who had matured into a full woman. The side of her that had feelings and impulses and likes and dislikes. He just couldn't find it in himself to deny her this. This small bit of respite from the unrelenting galaxy. This little stretch of winter land on a hill in a remote planet, where she has managed to find a sliver of escape from the worry and stress of the mission and dark bleakness that is the future. A place for her to let go and forget for a while her responsibilities and the expectations that had been pushed onto her. And he realises that he wants to see her smile and laugh and not have to wrinkle her forehead in worry and grit her teeth in agitation all the time. He just wants her happy.

He moves over, lifting up one end of the slightly battered trunk to his shoulder and returns that shit-eating grin of hers. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

* * *

**A/N: All right, it's finished! :D**

**I realise that the whole sled ride might sound unrealistic but like I said, I've never had the opportunity to play with snow much, coming from a tropical country so I wrote based on some advice by the guys at Aria's Afterlife Forum (swing by if you have the time - we have almost anything you could ask for ;D) and my own whims. xD**

**Any hoots, hope you enjoyed this story!**

**- Kasumi**


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